On Saturday, during the opening ceremony for the KL2017 SEA Games, Indonesia’s sports minister Imam Nahrawi sent out a message on Twitter expressing his shock and disappointment at seeing the Indonesian flag printed upside down in the booklet.
“It was a good opening ceremony but spoiled by this fatal negligence that was very painful,” he tweeted, tagging his Malaysian counterpart, Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
Khairy quickly responded, apologising for the error, and explaining that there was no malice intended.
Since then, even Wisma Putra, Malaysia’s foreign ministry, has weighed in with an official apology to the Indonesian government on the matter.
Social media has also been fired up on the issue, with Indonesians and Malaysians alike using the hashtag #ShameonyouMalaysia, which soon became a trending topic online.
The fact that this is a regional sporting event and involves neighbouring countries with close ties, both personal and at the governmental level, has only amplified the error.
However, as far as sporting events are concerned, it is not as big a stage for such blunders.
Anything from the use of wrong flags to incorrect national anthems have occurred in the biggest international sporting stage of all, the Olympic Games.
At the Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August last year, the flag for China during the medal ceremonies of two events were found to be wrong.
Reuters reported that the stars on the Chinese flags raised during the swimming and shooting medal ceremonies were incorrectly positioned.
It was even worse at the London Games in 2012, when the entire North Korean women’s football team left the pitch prior to a match, after the screens showed the South Korean flag next to each player.
Reuters reported how then president of the International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge said that there had been no political connotation.
“It was a simple human mistake,” he was quoted as saying.
Earlier this year, however, some Russian athletes brushed aside the wrong anthem being played during a medal ceremony at an international sporting event in Europe.
At the biathlon world championships in Hochfilzen, Austria in February, the Russian athletes who had won gold realised that the tune being played was the wrong version of the Russian anthem.
The music was promptly stopped and taking the cue, the Russians started singing the right anthem acapella.